As such a coating tool, for example, a conventional coating tool is well known wherein: the coating tool has a coating head composed of a pair of head members; a pocket and a grooved slot are formed between two side surfaces of the above pair of head members facing each other; a coating liquid is supplied into the pocket; and the grooved slot extends from the pocket toward the tip side and is open into the tip of the coating head.
Such a coating tool is mounted on a coating apparatus so that the tip of the coating head faces an object to be coated, and the longitudinal direction (longitudinal direction of the slot) of the coating head is aligned with the width direction of the object. Further, the coating liquid is supplied into the pocket from a coating liquid tank by a supply pump, flows through the slot, and is discharged from the tip of the coating head. Thus, the coating liquid is applied to the surface of the object which moves relative to the tip of the coating head.
The coating tool equipped with the coating head is for applying such coating liquids as a color paste for a liquid crystal display and/or as a resist agent for a color filter. In order to form a stable coating film on a target such as a sheet-shaped member or a panel-shaped member, it is an important requirement that the coating liquid is applied evenly in the coating operation. Regarding this subject, Patent Document 1 mentions a coating tool with an adjuster for adjusting the width of the slot.
The coating tool mentioned in Patent Document 1 provides an adjuster unit in a concavity formed in the exterior surface of a head member. By operating the adjuster unit, the head member is deformed so as to increase the distance between a pair of wall surfaces in the concavity. At the same time, the one side head member is also elastically deformed so as to approach the other side head member; and then this elastic deformation narrows the width of a slot at the tip of a coating head. Thereby, it is possible to control the flow-rate of a coating liquid discharged from the tip of the coating head, and to obtain a uniform film thickness.